What A Mess

I was talking to a friend about how it's hard to talk to people sometimes who are not parents. I don't mean to be rude, but being a parent teaches you a lot of things that non-parents will never grasp. You learn levels of forgiveness, patience and complete degradation most people without children never get to experience.

Like tonight, when my kid is really tired he often tries to raid the kitchen for something to EAT, instead of just going to sleep, even though it's obvious in a million ways he's not hungry, but exhausted. So he did a kamikaze attack on my fridge about 2 minutes before his bedtime and I caught him in the act and said, "Hey, Kitchen's CLOSED, it's time for bed." He was mad so he slammed the fridge door shut a little too forcefully.

I didn't back down, but sheparded him down the hall to his room and into bed. He was asleep -- no surprise -- in about 7 minutes. He was beat.

I go back into the kitchen to clean up.

I open the fridge.

There was a bottle of teriyaki sauce with the cap half on, standing in the fridge door area where we keep jams, jellies, relishes, sauces. He had upended the bottle when he slammed the door. There was thick, sticky, brown teriyaki sauce all over the bottom shelf of the fridge, soaked into everything -- a bag of flour, I had a plastic zip lock around most of it, but it still got the top edge, along with the cardboard box that holds Diet Cokes, a bunch of other dishes and food, and other boxes, all brown and sticky.

It was one of those messes that as you try to clean up, starts flowing everywhere and only gets worse. Edges of the fridge door frame, under the fridge on the floor. It was incredible where the stuff went -- and it look like a brown blood bath.

This is the fun stuff parents get to do at night. Of course, no kids will gever willingly go to sleep because they think the minute they close their eyes, all sorts of adult partying and fun starts up.

Oh yeah, nothing but one big party around here.